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A Visit

Posted on December 12, 2012

There are people who have complained I am neglecting the upcoming holiday. Well, I don’t like to belittle other people’s beliefs, but this holiday doesn’t mean a thing to me. If I REALLY, TRULY believed in the sentiments of the day…but I can’t pretend, not to you, fair reader. I just honestly don’t believe the world will end a week from Friday. It can’t. Why let me have the 1954 Nudist Yearbook if no one’s going to be around next July to buy it?

Let us consider other seasonal pleasures (but only after you read the following verse.)

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the Fair

Uncle Blogsy was cursing banana boxes there:

Some last-minute donors had brought them in late

Reducing my nerves to a pitiful state;

Though THEY were now snuggled anest in their beds,

Their book-uncle called dreadful doom on their heads:

I worked to get boxes stacked out of the way

So they wouldn’t crush somebody on Christmas Day.

When out in the lot there arose such a clatter,

I sprang to the door to see what was the matter;

I muttered, “So help me, if this is one more

RV filled with books, it is gonna be war!”

The moon on the bosom of newfallen snow

Gave a lustre of mid-day to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes should appear

But a minivan pulled by eight tiny reindeer

With a guy at the wheel whose beard was so thick

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick;

More rapid than Simenon, his car was towed

Through the snow by the reindeer, who couldn’t be slowed:

“Now Turow! Now Clancy! Now Christie! Maeve Binchy!

On Stewart, Paretsky, McCourt and DaVinci!

Pull up to the dock! Back up to it tight!

There’s plenty of books to be moved here tonight!”

As bookmarks that need to stay put slip away

When you want to pick up on the story next day,

So up to the dock all those reindeer they drew,

With that dang minivan, and St. Nicholas, too!

I tried to pull backward and fasten the door

But Nick wasn’t there in the van any more:

He was up on the dock, despite how I frowned

And in moments had passed through the door with a bound.

He was dressed in fake fur, and a hat with ear flaps,

And earmuffs as well (scared of frostbite, perhaps.)

A bag made for books he had flung on his back,

Which really confused me: it hung rather slack.

“Now, Blogsy!” he laughed, and his laughter was jolly

(And quite overwhelming: his breath smelled like holly)

“Come load up my van with Arundhati Roys

As gifts for a few thousand small girls and boys;

The ones on the nice list will bask in the sheen

Of Dr. Seuss, Milne, and Shel Silverstein;

While toddlers and tots who have not been so good

Will get all those bags of Ya-Ya Sisterhood.”

“You’re my kind of Santa, you nasty old elf!”

So I moved ninety boxes, in spite of myself.

The van held a lot more than most vans I’ve seen

But, hey, it was Santa’s—you know what I mean.

He jumped up inside, to his team gave a whustle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thustle.

I thought I’d done well as he flew through the air

But turning around, I could just stand and stare::

There were five times the books that had been there before!

I heard, “That’ll teach you to open the door!”

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